Two voices from the history of black literature in America are being heard once more. They are Richard Wright, whose “Native Son” and “Black Boy” were 20th Century classics, and Richard Bruce Nugent, one of the founders of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement. Both are represented by previously unpublished works.
“A Father’s Law” (reviewed Jan. 19 in Books) is based on an unfinished manuscript by Wright, who died in 1960. The draft, which he wrote during the last six weeks of his life, was found by his daughter and literary executor, Julia Wright, who contributes the book’s introduction. This year marks the centennial of his birth, and Harper will reissue some of Wright’s out-of-print material, including a volume containing three of his non-fiction books on race relations.
Nugent wrote “Gentleman Jigger” (Da Capo, $16.95) in 1928, during the Harlem Renaissance’s heyday. It satirizes the work of such greats as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and W.E.B. Du Bois in its tale of Aeon and Stuartt, brothers who are members of the light-skinned elite in Washington, and it involves love that broke racial and sexual taboos. Nugent is said to be the first African-American author to write frankly about homosexual attraction.
Books such as Wright’s and Nugent’s, among other novels, memoirs, biographies and non-fiction, are often released in or near February, Black History Month.
Here are others that are, or soon will be, in bookstores:
“Baldwin’s Harlem” (Atria, $24), by Herb Boyd, is a biography of James Baldwin that looks at his relationship to the era of the black renaissance writers. It examines how Baldwin’s birthplace and connections to those writers shaped his career and explores literary, political and racial issues as well as his personal life and often-controversial ideas.
“Someone Knows My Name” (Norton, $24.95), by Canadian author Lawrence Hill, imagines the life of a Carolina slave, Aminata, who is kidnapped by British slave traders, survives the misery of the Middle Passage voyage from Africa to America and escapes to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War. Self-taught and a teacher of others, she also travels to England and Sierra Leone. In Aminata, Hill has created an indomitable hero.
James McBride, author of the memoir “The Color of Water,” has a new novel due in stores Tuesday. “Song Yet Sung” (Riverhead, $25.95) is a tale of the slavery era in America inspired by real events. Set in Maryland in 1850, it is about a young slave, Liz Spocott, who fghts the slave-catcher who controls her life. Liz has disturbing dreams of the future, which foretell Martin Luther King Jr. and hip-hop, and learns from an elderly woman the secret language of runaway slaves known as “The Code.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Prince” (Amistad, $24.95), by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, is the true story of Abijah and Lucy Terry Prince, who were freed slaves in New England before the Civil War. Respected, rich, entrepreneurial and innovative — Lucy is called the first known African-American poet — they prospered until they bought land in Vermont and Massachusetts. When racist white neighbors tried to drive them away, Lucy took them to court and won. Their inspiring story illuminates a less-well-known aspect of the black experience.
Far less comforting is “The Slave Ship: A Human History” (Viking, $27.95), by Marcus Rediker. A deeply researched account of the ships that were the transports for the human cargo that fueled the American economy as well as instruments of war, this powerful book draws on the words of slaves, traders, pirates, ship captains and others to enliven the grim material and make it accessible.
“Slavery by Another Name” (Doubleday, $26), by Douglas A. Blackmon, due in stores in late March, shows the Civil War did not end racial oppression in America. Subtitled “The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II,” this book by The Wall Street Journal’s Atlanta bureau chief tells the often-overlooked story of neoslavery. From the 1870s until well into the 20th Century, under laws passed to intimidate them, black men were arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned, made to work off room and board in jail and, in effect, turned into unpaid slave laborers who were leased by manufacturers, farmers, mines and other businesses. This is a hard look at a horrifying aspect of recent history.
That Jackie Robinson was a hero on the baseball field and an icon of dignity in the face of discrimination is well known. That he also was an eloquent writer and advocate of equality is shown in “First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson” (Holt, $26), edited by Michael G. Long. Written from 1946 to 1972, Robinson’s letters — to such leaders as Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, as well as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X — reveal his commitment to exposing and combating racism in speech and deed.
The flamboyant and elegant Willie Brown, one of California’s most successful politicians and a master of strategy, offers his fascinating personal story in “Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times” (Simon & Schuster, $26), due out in February. It’s frank, funny and full of tips on everything from how a politician should dress to how to deal with scandals.
“King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop” (Hill & Wang, $25), by University of New Hampshire history professor Harvard Sitkoff, explores the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and where his faith would likely have taken him had he not been assassinated. Trinity College professor Louis P. Masur says its conclusion that “King was truly radical . . . is timely and brings together threads of the story in a coherent and eye-opening way.”
Due in April is Masur’s own book, “The Soiling of Old Glory: The Photograph That Shocked America” (Bloomsbury, $24.95). It is the story of the photograph, shot in 1976 by Stanley Forman of the Boston Herald-American during Boston’s bitter upheaval over forced busing, that showed a young white man nearly impaling a black lawyer with the staff of an American flag, an image that embodied the viciousness of prejudice. Masur tracked down those in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo and tells what led up to the moment and what happened next and years later.
“On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $18.95 paper), by Charles E. Cobb Jr., is a travel book and a detailed guide to the places and people who embodied the civil rights movement. The book describes more than 400 sites and has 150 photos, along with maps, addresses, short interviews, excerpts from speeches and other information.
Images that vividly capture the civil rights movement, augmented by thoughtful text, are presented in “Mine Eyes Have Seen: Bearing Witness to the Struggle for Civil Rights” (Life Great Photographer Series/Time Inc., $29.95), photos by Bob Adelman, essays by Charles Johnson. Evocative pictures of famous figures and regular folks fill this emotionally powerful book.
